


Nikita Tabris vs. the World

by fearnotthedemons



Series: Heaven's Light/Hellfire [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Emotional Constipation, Experimental Style, F/M, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Friends With Benefits To Lovers, Mentions of Sex, enemies to lovers (sort of?), learning to love, tabris is an asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-30 01:49:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15086402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearnotthedemons/pseuds/fearnotthedemons
Summary: Survival is an ugly, selfish thing, but Nikita is comfortable with this. After all, so is she.





	Nikita Tabris vs. the World

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Nikita 2.0, aka I went back and nitpicked some more lol. This is probably my favorite story I've yet written, so tell me what you think!

Nikita Tabris is getting married. She should be excited - thrilled, even - but she’s not. Instead, she is filled with a distaste that hunches her bony shoulders defensively and fixes a permanent scowl on her face.

 

Her father is not pleased.

 

Flat-chested, narrow-hipped, abrasive, and already missing half an ear for getting caught pickpocketing a noble, Nikita knows it’s a miracle her father was able to find a match for her at all. Still, she would rather eat Shianni’s rat stew every day for the rest of her life than spend it married to this stranger her father has coerced with a dowry worth more than she is.

 

Undaunted by her cousin’s sulking, Shianni braids flowers into Nikita’s unruly hair, far more delicate than the frizzy topknot she usually sports. Her face is painted with the little bit of kohl and blush they were able to scrounge up, and looking in the mirror Nikita decides this is the silliest she’s ever looked. She doesn’t tell Shianni, who is looking at her with tears in her eyes she will probably blame on the alcohol.

 

“You’re beautiful, cousin,” Shianni breathes. Nikita responds mechanically, trying to smile but succeeding only in baring her teeth. Staring at herself dead-eyed in the mirror, she sees nothing beautiful save the barely-suppressed joy in her cousin’s features.

 

***

 

“Your kind aren’t welcome here, _shem_ ,” Nikita spits at the human come to prey on the alienage’s women, unnerving grey eyes boring into him with the intensity of a hatred nurtured since birth.

 

“Do you have any idea who I am?!” He raises a hand threateningly towards her, but before anyone has time to react Shianni is throwing a broken bottle at his head.

 

He hits the ground with a sickening thud.

 

“Are you insane?! This is Vaughn Urien, the arl of Denerim’s son!” one of the shems cries in outrage.

 

“Well maybe his _father_ should have taught him better manners!”

 

The words slip out before Nikita can stop them. She is 90 pounds soaking wet and her lips are painted a clownish red against her freckled skin and her dress is too loose in some places and too tight in others, but the men back away slowly, as if she is a rabid beast in a gutter.

 

Perhaps she is.

 

***

 

 

A mousy young woman steps forward for Soris to introduce as his betrothed, Valora, and Nikita has to bite back a snicker. Maybe a cage _would_ be among the wedding presents. The man accompanying Valora is pale, blond, barrel-chested, and altogether too domestic-looking for Nikita’s taste. She’s not surprised by her father’s selection, but not impressed, either. He had always hoped she would settle down one day, his daydreams filled with solid merchant’s sons from Highever and a veritable army of grandchildren. Nikita has no such fantasies, and decides the poor fool marrying her ought to know that.

 

“And who’s this fellow with her?” she asks Soris loudly, cruel smile creeping onto her face. “Not mine, I hope.”

 

Soris and his betrothed retreat as quickly as possible, leaving a terrified boy from Highever alone with Nikita’s savage grin.

 

***

 

Slow, deliberate steps take her to the top of the platform next to the Vhenadahl. Nikita focuses on everything but the man beside her and the Chantry sister’s speech. The flowers adorning the normally somber alienage. Her father’s teary, hopeful smile. Shianni’s bright-eyed adoration as her two closest relations fulfil their marriage vows side by side.

 

Their happiness is almost worth the sick feeling in her stomach. Almost.

 

But then Soris is pointing, and Vaughn and his men are approaching them with mischief and malice in their eyes.

 

“Milord, this is a wedding!” the Chantry sister gasps, but it’s too late for that, now.

 

“Let’s take those two, the one in the tight dress, and… where’s the bitch that bottled me?”

 

“Let me go, you stuffed-shirt son of a--!” Shianni cries, but her twisting and shoving does no good against the shem’s iron grip.

 

“Oh, I’ll enjoy taming her. And see the little bride…” Vaughn trails off, eyes raking up and down Nikita’s boyish frame. She can’t decide if she wants to gouge his eyes out or set herself on fire.

 

Nikita can vaguely hear Nelaros’ vow to protect her over the roaring of blood in her ears, and she would laugh at the absurdity of his statement were their situation less dire.

 

“I’ll kill you!” she threatens the lordling as he approaches, and even Nelaros takes a step back, the blazing hatred in her eyes enough to set fire to a city.

 

Vaughn just laughs. “This one has spirit! Oh, we’re going to have some fun.”

 

Nikita sees red, but before she can raise a hand a fist swings at her head and the world goes dark.

 

***

 

She grimaces as she wakes, eyes adjusting to the musty storeroom she and the other women have been stuffed unceremoniously in to wait until the ‘party’ begins.

 

Nikita tells the others to do what they feel is right, but she will fight. She has always fought. When the guards come she is prepared to meet their naked blades with her bare fists, but then Soris slides her a sword and suddenly she has a chance.

 

Together they rush to the aid of the women that were taken - to Shianni. They make quite the pair as they rampage through Lord Urien’s halls; two obviously related elves armed with a crossbow and some borrowed blades, dressed for a wedding and covered in blood.

 

She smiles grimly at the thought but does not allow herself to become complacent in their hunt.

 

Soris tells her that Nelaros is waiting for them down the hall and she wonders if the man even knows which way to hold a sword. Her question is answered as the castle guards run him through before her eyes.

 

He dies protecting her. It should mean more, but she just feels empty.

 

“Nelaros!” Soris cries in shock. “I’m... so sorry, ‘Kita.”

 

“He’s dead. We’re not. Let’s keep moving.”

 

The wedding ring from Nelaros’ hand now sits heavily on hers, stained red with blood. She wonders absently if she will wash it before she sends it back to Highever.

 

***

 

Vaughn and his men die in agony, borrowed blades twisting in their guts. Their faces are convoluted in frozen horror, blood and entrails strewn across the stone floor. When the battle is over Nikita cannot get to Shianni’s side fast enough.

 

“You killed them, didn’t you?” Shianni asks, trembling. “You killed them all?”

 

Nikita Tabris kneels next to her cousin, daggers coated in gore and wedding dress soaked in the blood of a half-dozen noblemen.

 

“Like _dogs_ , Shianni.”

 

***

 

“You expect me to believe that one woman did all this?” the guard captain asks incredulously.

 

“Yeah," she snarls, "And I fucked your wife on my way back.”

 

They lunge for each other at the same time, teeth bared. Duncan and Valendrian’s restraining arms are the only things keeping the streets from running red.

 

The elder apologizes on Nikita’s behalf, but from behind Duncan she flashes a filthy gesture the captain’s way. She can see the muscles strain in his face and she smiles.

 

***

 

Duncan seems impressed by her audacity, seems to think she is some selfless martyr for taking all the blame. Nikita will never be a martyr. Martyrs die, and she has no intention of doing any such thing. No matter what happens, no matter what she faces, Nikita Tabris will survive, because surviving is all she knows how to do. Ostagar proves that.

 

***

 

The shem Alistair complains that lighting the beacon is a simple errand, an excuse to take them from the battlefield. This 'simple errand' saves their lives, and Nikita expects he will be grateful.

 

Now, outside the witch’s hut in the Wilds, he announces he would rather have died with the rest of the Wardens.

 

She laughs in his face.

 

“What good are you dead? Can you stop a Blight from beyond the grave? Stab it with your ghostly hand of righteousness?” she asks, unnerving pale eyes cutting into him. He has no answer, but she can feel the resentment radiating off of him. She does not care.

 

They take the witch’s daughter and leave.

 

Nikita appreciates that the witch does not ask her to keep Morrigan safe. It is an impossible task set before them and Nikita cannot imagine a scenario in which they all live. At the moment, she would sacrifice either one of them for her own chance to live, though she is not about to tell them so. For now, all she tells them is that the dog they find is coming with them, and that if they insist on bickering they’d best do it somewhere she can’t hear.

 

***

 

When they make camp for the first time, Nikita sets her tent away from the others. While Alistair builds a fire, she takes a dagger to her long, curly locks. She hacks and chops and cuts at her hair until there is nothing left but an uneven reddish fuzz cropped close to her scalp.

 

There is a wild look in her eyes as she stands there, chest heaving, in a pile of her own hair.

 

Alistair and Morrigan both share a look from across the campsite, but neither says a word.

 

***

 

The assassination attempt is a welcome reprieve from traveling the endless Ferelden countryside. They have been saving useless villagers and whiny shem children at Alistair’s behest, and while the change in treatment from the shems is nice, the delay is not. The Blight won’t wait for them forever.

 

It will wait for another fight, however.

 

The battle doesn’t last long - none with Nikita ever does. By the end, the leader of the group is lying unconscious in the blood of his hirelings. Alistair moves to strike the killing blow, but she stays his arm and wakes the man for questioning instead.

 

Tanned skin, blond hair, and plush lips paired with a sharp jawline, the assassin is easily the most beautiful person Nikita has ever seen. She stands over him with her arms crossed, painfully aware that she is not.

 

“You must think I’m royally stupid,” she says when he offers to work for her mere minutes after attempting to take her life.

 

“I think you are royally tough to kill and utterly gorgeous. There are worse things in life than serving the whims of a deadly sex goddess.”

 

She scoffs. “Flattery will get you nowhere. Still, I could use an assassin or five at my back.” She pauses to look him up and down appraisingly. “One will have to do.”

 

Alistair opens his mouth to protest, but one look from Nikita and he snaps it shut. Seeing his opening, Zevran stands and bows at the Wardens with a flourish.

 

“I hereby pledge my loyalty to you, until such a time as you choose to release me from it. I am your man, without reservation..this I swear.”

 

Nikita levels her steely stare at him. “You’d better be.”

 

The day is a warm one, for Ferelden, but shivers run down Zevran’s spine all the same.

 

***

 

He is flirty, this Zevran. Nikita would be flattered if she believed a single word of it.

 

She doesn’t.

 

Still, she can’t stop talking to him. His perspective, his experiences - all of them are beyond her wildest dreams. It’s fascinating. Zevran’s adventures in Antiva and beyond might as well have happened in another world compared to her sheltered life spent in the slums of Denerim’s alienage.

 

The closest she has come to luxury is pickpocketing nobles. He has lived luxury, has drowned in its comforts despite the hardships he has faced. She tries to imagine a life like that every time he opens his mouth, every time he tells another wild tale of sex, excess, and depravity. It is exciting, and what she has always wanted.

 

She notices, however, that he never says what _he_ wants. It is always what he has had, what he has done. Never what he dreams, or hopes, or wishes, or even likes.

 

“So what is it you fancy, exactly?” she dares to ask one day, poking the campfire as the two of them sit up far after everyone else has retired to their tents.

 

“I fancy many things,” he replies, the curve of his smile bathed in the glow of the fire’s dying light. “I fancy things that are beautiful and things that are strong. I fancy things that are dangerous and exciting.” He pauses, locking eyes with Nikita from across the flames and quirking an arched brow. “Would you be offended if I said I fancied you?”

 

She is thankful for the darkness that hides the furious flush of her cheeks.

 

“No,” she says eventually, rubbing a hand over the uneven fuzz on her scalp. “But I would not believe you, either.”

 

She leaves him to tend the campfire himself.

 

***

 

His flirting persists.

 

Nikita is not sure why, and she suspects Zevran isn’t either. She has seen the men and women Zevran flirts with and knows that she is not his ‘type’. She knows there is nothing desirable about her, save perhaps the growing power she wields as a Warden, but it is nice to pretend she is wanted.

 

They are visiting Denerim when she decides she might as well flirt back. It ends with the two of them tangled in the bedsheets of a room at the Pearl, out of breath and shiny with sweat.

 

She asks the question before he can.

 

“So what now?” Her expression is carefully guarded once again, any traces of softness a post-coital memory and nothing more.

 

“Allow me to make it simple for you, my Grey Warden,” Zevran says, stretching before settling back into the scratchy sheets of the whorehouse bed. “What comes next is entirely up to you. I was raised to take my pleasures where they could be found, for they do not come very often. I shall ask nothing more of you than you are willing to give.”

 

Nikita tilts her head at him, tries to gauge his level of sincerity. There is no lie in the whisky hues of his irises, no deception in the lines of his face. It surprises her. Then again, she supposes he is no stranger to fucking with no strings attached. She isn’t, either.  

 

“Works for me,” she decides aloud.

 

She says it casually, as though she has not spent the stretch of silence telling herself a million reasons he will not want her again. As if she has not conjured up a million more why she shouldn’t get her hopes up about being with such a beautiful man who is surely repulsed by her body almost as much as she is.

 

But the decision is made; she will take what she can get and deal with any rejections later. She always has.

 

Zevran just smiles, blissfully unaware of the turmoil in his bedmate’s mind. “I must admit, we have come very far from those early days when I failed to kill you and you decided not to kill me. Fate is such a tricky whore.”

 

Nikita can't help but snort in agreement. “Sure is.”

 

***

 

Nikita gives everyone in the camp gifts. They are ridiculous things at times - the odd trinket she finds here, a piece of someone else’s garbage her dog brings her there.

 

Other times they are meaningful. The locket from Alistair’s mother, Sten’s long lost sword, flowers for Leliana that smell like her dead mother - all of these things indicate a kindness Nikita has been hiding from them all.

 

The way she gives them does not.

 

“I--Thank you,” Zevran says, voice thick with emotion when she hands him a pair of beautiful Dalish gloves with no warning or preamble. They look just like his mother’s had all those years ago.

 

“Yeah, well, you needed a new pair anyways,” she deflects, playing it off as though she has not been deciding how to give him these gloves for nearly a week. “Just don’t ruin them like the last ones.”

 

She tries to walk away like nothing has happened, but he catches her by the waist and pulls her close.

 

“I mean it, Nikita,” he says softly while she is caught in his embrace. “ _Thank you._ ”

 

She allows the ghost of a smile to play across her features and gives him the quickest kiss on the cheek he’s ever received before making a tactical retreat, heart racing and face burning.

 

It’s not quite emotion, but it's a start, and it scares them both.

 

***

 

The whole camp has trouble sleeping because of them. Part of it is the sex, and part of it is the _noise_. They stay up all hours of the night talking and laughing about anything from the craziest thing they’ve ever stolen to the various stages of soldier’s bane poisoning.

 

“The way you are acting now - with _him_ \- is not fitting of a Grey Warden,” Wynne warns Nikita one morning after a particularly long night.

 

Wynne expects the young Warden will be thankful for the intervention and come to her senses. She does not expect the cold fury in Nikita’s eyes, nor is she prepared to face its full force.

 

“Fuck. Off.”

 

“Excuse me?” No one has dared address Wynne so rudely in years.

 

“You heard me,” Nikita spits. “When I want your unwarranted and prudish advice, I’ll ask for it.”

 

The rest of the camp looks the other way when Nikita storms off to take her anger out on a nearby tree. Some of them cast sympathetic glances towards Wynne, but no one dares say a word.

 

Zevran and Nikita are louder than ever that night.

 

***

 

“How well-versed are you in poetry?” Zevran asks her out of the blue one day as they make their way to Orzammar. “Antivan poetry, specifically?”

 

“I’ve never read _any_ poetry. I can’t read,” Nikita admits, casting a suspicious look his way.

 

“Well I’m afraid this isn’t a very good introduction to it,” he chuckles, but continues anyways. “This was recited to me as I recall by a rather wealthy target of mine...”

 

He pauses for dramatic affect, clears his throat, and begins reciting the filthiest piece of poetry Nikita could have imagined:

 

“ _The symphony I see in thee,/it whispers songs to me./Songs of hot breath upon my neck,/songs of soft sighs by my head./Songs of nails upon my back,/songs of thee come to my bed._ ”

 

Nikita raises her brow at him, still waiting for an explanation.

 

“Oh, I know,” he continues, “She thought this would actually convince me to spare her. I had sex with her anyway, but that goes without saying - she still had to die. The poem was amusing at the time, however, and thus I’ve always remembered it.”

 

“And you’re reciting this Antivan sex poetry to me because…?”

 

“Well…” Zevran begins, “I thought it might cheer you up. You simply look so unhappy. Such an unflattering expression for such a lovely face.”

 

“Yeah, well, everything’s pretty shitty if you hadn’t noticed,” she grumbles, trying to pass the flush in her cheeks off as anger.

 

“Oh, my dear Warden,” Zevran murmurs, and there is a tenderness in his words that steals Nikita’s breath. “Life will always be unhappy for people like us. We must learn to steal what good moments we can and live with the rest, no matter how ‘shitty’ it may seem.”

 

She dares to meet his gaze now, finds it almost too warm to bear.

 

“Zev...”

 

He kisses her hand, never breaking eye contact. The feeling travels up her arm all the way to her chest, where it nestles between her ribs and pulses with the beating of her heart.

 

They continue on towards the stronghold of the dwarves as if nothing significant has passed between them.

 

***

 

As they are leaving the Deep Roads Wynne apologizes for her intrusion upon Nikita and Zevran’s private affairs, tells the young elf she can see that the relationship is good for the both of them. A light in the darkness.

 

“Not everything is a goddamn metaphor,” Nikita tells her with a flat-eyed stare that Wynne will think about for days and weeks and years afterwards. “Sometimes people just need other people. Not because they’re beacons, or heroes, or whatever else you come up with to make it pretty. Because they’re _people_.”

 

***

 

They have been sharing a bed since Denerim, but now there is something more that hangs in the air between them. Lingering looks, comforting touches, little assurances that the other is alright, is not too hurt or too weary to go on.

 

The others see it before they do, can put a name to the emotion before either elf is even ready to admit feeling it.

 

Despite her stubborn denial, it makes Nikita’s sharp edges just a little softer, but she is living proof that even a blunt weapon can kill.

 

***

 

Nikita has asked about all of Zevran’s tales, but the last one he refuses to tell her until they are sharing a bed in Arl Eamon’s Denerim estate. Lying curled together in the sheets, he whispers hoarsely the story of how he betrayed the woman that he might have loved - _Rinna._ How he came to Ferelden to die by Nikita's hand only to be spared, only to find life again after it all.

 

He is crying by the time he has finished, and Nikita cradles him in her arms like she used to cradle Soris and Shianni after their parents died.

 

“Shhh…” she soothes, and he stills in her embrace.

 

Zevran wipes his eyes and lets out a shaky sigh. “Thank you, truly. It...feels good to finally speak of this. I swore I never would. Whatever it is I sought by leaving Antiva, I think I have found it here. I owe you a great deal.”

 

“You owe me _nothing_ ,” she insists, and for the first time in her life she means it.

 

“What about you, hm?” he asks softly, suddenly curious. “You know about how I got here, but I realize I know very little of how you came to be a Grey Warden.”

 

Nikita traces patterns across the tattoos on his tan skin, closes her eyes like she is reopening an old, infected wound.

 

“The day I was conscripted...was meant to be my wedding day,” she begins slowly, fingers still dancing across Zevran’s bare skin. “His name was Nelaros, and I resented him almost the moment I laid eyes on him; it was an arranged marriage, and my father had a very different future in mind for me than I did for myself.”

 

Zevran lets out a quiet chuckle at the statement, but allows her to continue uninterrupted. As she speaks, her fingers subconsciously run along the edge of her docked ear, scarred digits recalling old pain as much as her words.

 

When she is finished Zevran reaches up and cups a hand against her face, kisses her slowly, softly. They have kissed a thousand times by now, but this one is different. Intimate. Reverent in a way no prayer could match.

 

They fall asleep huddled together, cocooned against the rest of the world. It is a brief moment of peace, but a moment of peace nonetheless.

 

***

 

“So here’s the mighty Grey Warden at long last,” a voice calls out from above the filthy Denerim alley. “The Crows send their greetings once again.”

 

Nikita swears under her breath. Of _course_ the Crows have found them again.

 

“So they sent you, Taliesen,” Zevran says, almost too quietly for his voice to carry, “Or did you volunteer for the job?”

 

“I volunteered, of course. When I heard that the _great Zevran_ had gone rogue I simply had to see it for myself.” Taliesen is sarcastic and biting, chooses his words like weapons.

 

“Is that so?” Zevran plays along, sounding far less amused than his former partner. “Well, here I am in the flesh.”

 

“You can return with me, Zevran,” Taliesen promises, spinning a neat trap with his lies. “I know why you did this, and I don’t blame you. It’s not too late! Come back and we’ll make up a story. Anyone can make a mistake.”

 

Nikita grips her daggers until her knuckles go white, clenches her teeth at the thought of Zevran returning to the organization that had so blatantly abused him.

 

“Of course, I’d need to be _dead_ , first,” she spits, all rage and poison daggers.  

 

“And I’m not about to let that happen,” Zevran finishes for her, taking a step closer. “I am sorry, my old friend, but the answer is no. I’m not coming back, and you should have stayed in Antiva.”

 

***

 

Zevran looks away as Nikita slices Taliesen’s throat open, and she knows he is thankful not to be the one holding the dagger this time. He does not deserve the pain of killing another person he cares for.

 

“And so it is done,” Zevran says quietly, looking at Taliesen’s pale, bloodless face with something that is almost regret. “I am free of the Crows. They will assume that I am dead along with Taliesen. So long as I do not make my presence known to them, they will not seek me out.”

 

“Isn’t that what you’ve wanted?”

 

“It is, in fact, what I’d hoped for ever since you decided not to kill me,” he agrees, shaking the grief from his shoulders and standing tall once more. “I suppose it would be possible for me to leave now, if I wished. I could go far away, somewhere the Crows would never find me.”

 

Nikita assumes a carefully neutral expression at his words, tries very hard not to think of what it will be like if he leaves.

 

“I think, however, that I could also stay here,” he continues, giving life to a hope Nikita is trying desperately to suppress. “I made an oath to help you, after all, and saving the world seems a worthy task to see through to the end, yes?”

 

“You know you’re free to leave whenever you wish,” she tells him stiffly, stifling emotion. “I would regret seeing you leave, but I wouldn’t stop you. Whatever it is _you_ want, that’s what you should choose.”

 

“I--Nobody has ever--I mean--” he stammers, unsure for the first time since Nikita has met him. “Normally these things are decided by others.”

 

“Not anymore.” She says it so simply, so matter-of-factly. It is not simple for Zevran, who has never truly chosen his own fate before.

 

“Then...I suppose I shall stay? Is that good?”

 

“If it’s what you want, _yes_.”  

 

“Then stay I shall,” he announces more confidently, smirk so self-assured she almost forgets the heartbreaking question in his voice just seconds before.

 

***

 

The knock on her door the next day is met with a withering glare until Nikita realizes it is Zevran standing there on the threshold, shifting his weight awkwardly at her silence.

 

“You can come in, you know,” she tells him, as though he is the one being stupid and not her.

 

When they are seated across from one another on the couches, he finally opens his mouth to speak.

 

“I did not thank you,” he blurts in explanation for his visit. “It occurs to me now that you have freed me from the Crows, and yet I did not think to thank you for it. No matter the reason, it was done, and I the benefactor. So, thank you.”

 

“Zev, there’s no need--”

 

“No. There _is_ a need. I simply am not accustomed to… all of this. In the Crows we do not have friends, and yet here you are and I cannot help but consider you such.”

 

“I...thank you, Zevran. I consider you a friend, too,” she replies, cursing herself as she adds, “And more.”

 

There is a beat of the worst silence Nikita has endured in her whole life before Zevran responds.

 

“I must admit that I have thought of you in the same way. I...simply had no idea you might feel the same. How very novel.”

 

Nikita has stopped breathing.

 

“Here,” Zevran says, reaching into his pocket. “It seems an appropriate moment to give you this.”

 

“Zev, you don’t have to give me anything,” she gently pushes his outstretched hand back, but he insists.

 

“I may not need to, but I want to. I acquired it on my very first job for the Crows: a Rivaini merchant prince. He was wearing a single jeweled earring when I killed him - in fact, that’s about all he was wearing. I thought it was beautiful and took it to mark the occasion. I’ve kept it since, and I’d like you to have it.”

 

“Oh?” she gives him a look that says she knows what he is trying to avoid and will not make it easy for him.

 

“Sell it, wear it, throw it away - do with it what you will. It is simply the least I could give you after what you have done for me,” he deflects, feeling uncomfortably hot all of the sudden.

 

“So it’s not a token of your undying affection for me, then.” She is teasing, but there is something hidden beneath her words that makes his heart stop functioning correctly, makes it beat wildly out of time.

 

“I--Look, just take it. It has meant a lot to me, but so have--” he stops himself before he can say anything incriminating. “So has what you’ve done. Please, take it.”

 

Nikita looks at his outstretched hand once more, emotions flashing across her face in such rapid succession that Zevran cannot name them all. She settles on anger, wears it like armor. It has protected her far longer and far better than the drakescale set from Wade ever has.  

 

“If you think I’m just gonna throw it away like it means nothing then why the fuck give it to me?” she accuses now, the fire behind her eyes burning his heart, filling him with shame and confusion and all sorts of things he’d really rather not think about.

 

“You are a very frustrating woman to deal with, you know that? We pick up every other bit of treasure we come across, but not this?!” he fires back, just as hurt and angry. “You don’t want the earring, you don’t get the earring - very simple.”

 

“Fine!” Nikita snaps, “Fine.”

 

Zevran storms out, and they do not talk until dinner, where they pretend nothing has happened. The tension in the room is thick enough to cut with a knife.

 

***

 

She invites him back to her chambers afterwards to kiss and make up. A little bit of angry sex and everything will be back to normal.

 

He refuses her.

 

She understands that he has every right to do so, that some things are private and he owes her no explanation, but she cannot help but feel that there is more to it. That he is simply tired of pretending to enjoy her company, that the unnamed _something_ between them was merely a figment of her imagination and her refusal of his gift has brought everything they have built over the past year crumbling down.

 

She does not sleep, instead staring numbly at the ceiling and feeling utterly, horribly empty.

 

***

 

Returning to the alienage only makes her feel worse. She holds her head high, keeps her shoulders square and her daggers loose in their sheaths, but it does nothing to block out the gawking stares and fevered whispers that ripple in her wake.

 

Alistair is normally the comforting member of their group, but even if he wanted to help he does not know how. He looks to Zevran, but the tattooed elf stares determinedly forward, chastising himself every time he sends a worried glance Nikita’s way. He tells himself that she does not want his pity, and will not welcome his support after what he said.

 

He only changes his mind when they find her people - family and friends and neighbors and everyone she has grown up knowing - caged like animals to be shipped as slave cargo.

 

Nikita hugs her father fiercely upon freeing him, tells the others to go on ahead and make sure the rest of the elves get home safely.

 

As soon as they leave she collapses on her knees, Loghain’s papers clutched tightly in her hands, and lets out a choked scream. It is raw and angry and desperate and ugly and everything she feels but cannot say.

 

Now it is Zevran’s turn to hold her as sobs wrack her body, the emotion of the past few days crashing down over her.

 

“Hush, mi amor,” he whispers so softly she cannot make out the words, does not know what he is admitting to. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

 

***

 

No one says a word when they arrive late to dinner at the Tabris household, Nikita’s eyes rimmed red and Zevran’s undershirt stained with tears that are not his own.

 

***

 

Shianni tracks her down later in the evening, when Nikita’s companions have all fallen asleep. They sit on the roof side by side with a ‘borrowed’ bottle of wine from the cupboards that her father will not miss until tomorrow. It is tradition that they do this, a call back to simpler times when Nikita had not been branded a killer and a thief, and Shianni had not been outcasted by the community, and there was no Blight or army of darkspawn threatening all of civilization.

 

“So, you and...Zevran, is it?” Shianni asks her cousin with a nudge and a sparkle in her eye like they are gossiping teenagers again.

 

“What about him?” Nikita shoots a warning glance out of the corner of her eye.

 

“You’re in love, that’s what!” the older elf cries as though it is the most obvious thing in the world.

 

“Shut _up_!” Nikita hisses, face a furious, blazing red. “Do you want to wake the whole damn neighborhood?”

 

The mirth in Shianni’s eyes lessens when Nikita says this, and she looks - _really_ looks - at her cousin for the first time since they have been reunited.

 

Old scars have faded, the jagged edge of her docked ear healed and almost the same color as the rest of her skin, but new ones are abundant and painful. They don’t blend in nearly as well, like the pink and puckered knife wound running down her jaw that Shianni traces with trembling fingers.

 

There has always been a fire in Nikita’s pale eyes, but when she looks back at her cousin the moonlight reflects and refracts their light, shows how broken she really is.

 

“Oh, cousin,” Shianni breathes, as if her heart is breaking, too, at the sight. “Can’t you see that you deserve something good? Just this once, the world owes you a happy ending.”

 

Nikita squeezes her cousin’s hand, presses a kiss to her palm. “The world doesn’t owe me shit, and neither does he.”

 

“Maybe not,” Shianni says, eyes shining with unshed tears, “But you owe it to yourself to try.”

 

They spend the rest of the night in companionable silence, counting the stars above them that are not obstructed by buildings and city smog. When they finally fall asleep, it is wrapped in borrowed, threadbare blankets and each other’s arms.

 

Her father chastises them the next morning, and Soris complains that he was not invited. Nikita and Shianni just giggle to themselves.

 

***

 

They have only a few days before the Landsmeet, and when Nikita is not strategizing with Eamon or blackmailing nobles into supporting Alistair’s bid for the throne, she is staring at Zevran. There is something about the way he carries himself now, or maybe the way he speaks, that is unlike before.

 

Because Nikita is curious, and because she has no tact whatsoever, she says so outright. She would never admit it, but she is desperate to talk to him after the hell that was the alienage.

 

Zevran sighs. “Are you certain you wish to talk about this? I really do not know what to say.”

 

“You said we were friends, at the very least,” Nikita tells him, her stare as unamused with his deflections as it is curious to find out what has changed him. “Friends tell each other this sort of thing.”

 

“Very well,” he sighs again, this time more quietly. “Let me try to explain.”

 

Nikita sits taller at the desk, leans forward and puts her elbows on the table. A few weeks ago Zevran might have made a joke about her eagerness, but it is not a few weeks ago.

 

“An assassin must learn to forget about sentiment; it is dangerous. You take your pleasures where you can when life is good. To expect anything more would be reckless. I thought it was the same between us - something to enjoy, a pleasant diversion and little more. And yet…”

 

He looks up at her, more naked than he has ever been before.

 

“Are you...saying you’re in love with me?” She hesitates as she asks, tries to keep the _stupid_ , girlish hope from her voice.

 

“I do not know,” he replies, sounding well and truly mystified. “How would you know such a thing? I grew up amongst those who sold the illusion of love, and then I was trained to make my heart cold in favor of the kill. Everything I have been taught says what I feel is wrong, yet I cannot help it. Since you asked me to bed after dinner the other night I have been nothing but confused. Do you understand me at all?”

 

Nikita nods wordlessly. She understands all too well what he is saying, has lived her own version of it.

 

“All I need to know is if there might be some future for us,” Zevran is pleading now, his heart open and bleeding between them. “Some possibility of...I do not know what.”

 

“I--fuck, Zev, you know I’m shit with feelings--I want a future with you, too. I mean, I hope there’s one for us.”

 

He smiles at her now, tentative but hopeful. She smiles back.

 

“I still have the earring, you know,” he says. “I would like to give it to you. As a token of affection, this time. Will you take it?”

 

“Sounds like a damn proposal, Arainai,” she teases.

 

He quirks a brow. “Not unless you wish it.”

 

“I’ll take it,” Nikita says with a smile and a laugh that Zevran has missed these past few days more than he can say. “But you should know that my ears aren’t actually pierced.”

 

“Not yet they aren’t.”

 

His flashes a roguish grin that promises adventure and romance and no small amount of mischief. He does not disappoint.

 

***

 

Nikita chooses to pierce the ear that is whole, telling Zevran it is only fair to mangle and modify both ears equally. He laughs, but places a kiss on her cropped one.

 

“So it is not jealous,” he says with a wink, but they both know it is something far softer.

 

***

 

The next day she parades around with her head held high, jeweled earring catching the light in just the right way.

 

She is still flat-chested, narrow-hipped, abrasive, and missing half an ear, but she is more than that, too. She is loved, and she wears the proof proudly.

 

***

 

The Landsmeet a week later is a shitshow from which Alistair emerges as king. Nikita would love to say that she chooses him over Anora because he is more qualified or because it is important to keep the Theirin line on the throne or a million other well thought out reasons.

 

The truth is that she still has not forgiven Anora for Fort Drakon.

 

They make preparations to march, and Nikita spends every stolen moment with Zevran that she can. They are not enough, but they have to be. She has a Blight to end.

 

***

 

Nikita stops hearing Riordan’s words as soon as he says a Warden must die to end the Blight. The blood rushing to her ears is too loud, as is the wailing dread in her mind, a combination of the taint and her own panic.

 

If Riordan fails, what then? Alistair cannot die. She has put him on the throne, and if he falls with the archdemon then so does Ferelden.

 

Nikita is not a martyr, has never been a martyr, but the Blight seems determined to make her one. She knows in her heart that if she must choose between living in a Blighted world with Zevran or ensuring he survives a safe one without her, she will give her life.

 

The realization shocks her, shakes her to her core. For the first time in her life Nikita is not just determined to survive; she is prepared to sacrifice.

 

***

 

“Let me get this straight,” Nikita says, and Morrigan would be hopeful if she could not see the anger reflected in the elf’s eyes from the glow of the fireplace. “You want me to convince Alistair to have a creepy god baby with you with the promise that we _probably_ won’t die if you get it right?”

 

“I would not have phrased it that way, but yes,” Morrigan agrees.

 

“Fuck off.”

 

“Please, you’re being childish!” Morrigan snaps. “I offer a way out. What would Zevran say if he knew you could survive and return to him after the battle is won but chose not to out of  - what? Spite?”

 

Nikita hesitates.

 

Then she makes a rude gesture and shows Morrigan the door.

 

***

 

She and Zevran make the most of their night together. Nikita clings to him like her life depends on it, and he to her like she might disappear. Limbs tangled beneath the sheets, it is hard to tell where one begins and the other ends.

 

***

 

“If this should be the last we speak, I want you to know that assassinating you was the luckiest thing that could have happened to me,” Zevran tells her with a forced smile, trying not to think of what they will face ahead. Trying to cling to the fading hope that they will all survive this.

 

“Will you still be saying that when we reach the archdemon, I wonder?” she asks, and her humor is just as strained, just as desperate.

 

He steps closer, presses his forehead to hers with an urgency that steals her breath away.

 

“I would say it at the gates of the Dark City itself.”

 

***

 

Spikes, claws, teeth, and jagged edges all combine to make the nightmare on wings the archdemon is. It is more horrifying in person than it has ever been in dreams. Its black scales glint with malice, reflect a twisted sort of light that makes everything around it seem foul. Corrupted.

 

Zevran’s jaw drops when he sees it, the blood leaving his face in a great rush.

 

Nikita just stares it down with a grim determination, trying to ignore the sick fear in her stomach.

 

***

 

They are down to the final blow when Nikita shouts at Alistair to stay back, threatening him when he does not cooperate. The future king of Ferelden does as she asks, but the wild look in his eyes makes Zevran's hairs stand on end.

 

Something is wrong.

 

Nikita rushes at Zevran, kissing away the question on his lips. It is messy, tastes like sorrows and unlived futures and a desperate kind of love.

 

“I love you,” she says, breathless, and before he can snatch her back to him she is running towards the archdemon, howling, daggers drawn and teeth bared.

 

When her blades hit, a great flash of white consume Nikita and the archdemon as one, send a shockwave that brings everyone atop Fort Drakon to their knees. Zevran’s frantic cries are lost in the chaos.

 

***

 

Nikita Tabris’ body lies atop the archdemon, limbs singed and sitting at all the wrong angles.

 

Zevran is trembling even before he reaches her, before he gathers her in his arms and _screams_. It is the cry of a man just as broken as the body he is holding. Nikita’s mabari takes up the call as well, the sound of their heartbreak echoing over the saved city.

 

Tears and snot mix with the gore smeared on Zevran’s face as he rocks Nikita gently back and forth.

 

“Please, mi amor, open your eyes for me. _Please, please, please._ ”

 

He does not remember anything after that.

 

***

 

All of Ferelden remembers the hero who sacrificed all to save them. Denerim’s alienage proudly claims her as their own, tells stories of the wild-eyed youth born with bloody knuckles and bared teeth. Those who knew her best are haunted by her sacrifice, their dreams and nightmares filled with the sharp edges that made up Nikita Tabris.

 

Her statue stands in front of the palace, bright, tall, and unapologetically elven, flaws displayed proudly for all to see. There is regular traffic to visit this shrine, to pay homage to the hero and the myth. Only one man honors the woman.

 

Once a year on the eve of her death, Zevran Arainai stops whatever he is doing to visit his lost love. Shrouded by his grief and a dark travelling cloak, there are few who recognize him as a hero of the Blight who stood proudly alongside _the_ hero. He is simply another man in mourning, one of thousands who lost everything to the darkspawn.

 

“Nikita, mi amor,” he whispers, staring up at her carved marble face and remembering the nights he lay awake counting her freckles like stars, “The world is a sorry place without you.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Kudos/comments appreciated :)


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